Budget Games

FROM A DISTANCE, the federal budget process may appear to be a slugfest of giants: Mr. Liberal clouts Mr. Conservative with open-ended "investments in humanity;" Mr. C counters with "sensible spending" and "sustained safety nets." This year, as any guy who reads the headlines will tell you, the Right is whipping the Left because "the mood of the nation is changing." All of it sounds familiar.

What the guy who reads the headlines probably can't tell you is exactly how Mr. Conservative--in this case, Ronald Reagan--engineered his fiscal victories and why, if the President won so big. Congress is still fussing about money.

The story began last spring, when the Administration reversed the usual order of fiscal confrontations and turned to the budget committees before the appropriations panels could begin allocating money. Reagan put all of his political capital behind the broad goal of reduced spending and pushed the details--bloated weapons systems towering over crippled social programs--as far out of the spotlight as possible. The ploy worked; an overall spending ceiling was set with a so-called "reconciliation" budget package, and startled appropriations czars were told not to exceed the general limit in their 13 specific areas. Combining this victory with his tax cut, Reagan bragged he had finally saved the nation from the cancer of New Dealism and promptly took off for his month-long summer vacation, presumably to get the government off his back for a while.

As if to prove that old saying about vacationing cats and playful mice and budgets, Congress had a little fun before Reagan returned last month. Individual appropriations totals began creeping above original Administration levels, threatening the reconciliation goals. Just last week, Republicans joined Democrats in the House to pass an $87.3 billion social spending bill, which the White House immediately labeled "budget busting" and targeted for a veto.

CHANCES ARE that Reagan could kill the bill if his lieutenants on the Hill begin twisting arms, but the President apparently desires more than mere adherence to his initial recommendations. He, budget director David Stockman and others are scrounding around for some way to make palatable a new batch of cuts--perhaps as much as $13 billion, all in non-military spending. In effect, Reagan is playing the game two ways: after basing his crusade on the reconciliation measure last spring, he has come back this fall and tampered with the appropriations process. "He's got a lot of people, Republicans and Democrats and espcially moderates, who feel like he's betrayed them," says one veteran congressional staffer familiar with appropriations. "Now even in the Senate, Republicans are saying that maybe he (Reagan) has gone too far."

The packaging of the new cuts could take various forms. One proposal is a reduced omnibus funding resolution, an emergency step the Administration might suggest while Congress finishes the appropriations process. Under existing budget rules, Reagan could also ask for a Second Budget Resolution, with which he would presumably adjust the overall ceiling downward. A third option revealed only this weekend would be immediate reductions through administrative deferrals--spending delays that vaguely resemble the (now illegal) impoundments made famous by Richard Nixon. Congress could block the deferrals but only with an endless and unlikely string of resolutions.

The battle is far from over. Congress has weeks to go on its spending bills and cannot respond to the Administration's latest proposals until Reagan outlines his strategy. Whatever that strategy is, appropriation subcommittee chairmen say they will resist an effort to twist further the budget process to fit the President's political needs. For this they should be applauded; Reagan has too easily convinced the public that his fiscal gamesmanship should be seen only as a determined Mr. Conservative besting a flabby Mr. Liberal. In fact, the procedural tricks play a large role in the budget fight, and if the Administration triumphs this time around, it will be due more the mastery of Capitol Hill loopholes than to a resounding mandate for renewed reductions.